Jack pells crucian fishing tips
For catching crucians in spring and summer most baits will work.
Some anglers swear by the traditional fare including maggots and casters, while others put their faith in a more modern approach with pellets.
However, over the last few seasons I have been favouring bread as my hookbait. Not only is it cheap, but on most venues it’s hugely underused too – and crucians love it!.
Thanks to its bright white colour it is highly visible to fish and this can really pay dividends on lakes with silty bottoms, especially when the crucians start feeding and clouding the water – they’ll still be able to spot your bait!
What bread to use
I’ll often chop and change on the day between bread paste and bread flake, depending on how the session is going.
Often you’ll find they’ll come to the flake first, but then you might have to switch to a smaller, paste bait to keep the fish coming.
You can fish your hookbait as a big piece of flake on its own, but I prefer to fish over a bed of crumb which I’ll prepare myself at home.
I’ll stick a few slices of white bread in the blender. It’s important to get the crumb mix down as fine as possible but I will leave some bigger lumps in there around the same size as a 2mm pellet.
This gives them something to get their heads down over and will help to keep them searching for food instead of just making a cloud in the water.
For feed, mix the liquidised white crumb with shop-bought brown crumb to help bind it all together. You don’t need to fill the lake in – a golf ball-sized ball every 45 minutes will do the job.
Up close
At this time of year, as the water begins to warm up, I strongly believe that you can’t fish too close in for crucians.
As long as there’s a bit of depth they’ll often sit right under your feet, especially if you’ve got some bankside cover. These fish love to congregate under lily pads, overhanging trees and bramble bushes, and will come close in to marginal reeds.
For me, this is one of the best aspects of targeting crucians, as you get to enjoy some ‘up close and personal’ fishing right under the rod tip.
The only downside is, you have to make sure you keep quiet. Banging and crashing on the bank will soon see the fish heading off to the next set of pads or bush.
More often than not, crucians will feed on the bottom, so be sure to plumb the depth accurately to ensure your bait is on their dinner table.
Simple rigs
With the fish being so close in, it might sound odd that I tend to use a 13ft match rod, but this enables me to sit back from the bank and drop my rig into likely looking spots with supreme accuracy.
I also prefer to use a centrepin reel (there’s something magical about fishing a ’pin) and this is loaded with 6lb line which might sound heavy but due to fishing near snags, it’s better to fish safe especially if there is a healthy stock of tench in the lake too.
Spotting the bites
Bite detection comes in the form of a Starlite-tipped waggler for fishing after dark, or a pole float carrying enough shot to dot the float right down so only a few millimetres of the tip are showing. This reveals the tiniest of touches from these often wary fish.
Saying that, I’m a believer in a big hook, and will usually fish a size 12. That may sound a bit large, but you need a decent size to keep hold of a big bait.
The size 12 allows me to fish a piece of bread flake about the size of a 50p piece, and the hook stays well hidden.
As the bread takes on water, it swells up but remains soft enough to be engulfed in one by a hungry fish. You’ll often find that bites during the day can be sensitive.
Fishing at night is a completely different affair. The crucians seem to throw their caution to the wind, and the float usually sails away confidently.
During the summer, this can be an efficient way of fishing, as the long hot days aren’t always the best for getting regular bites.